In any high volume manufacturing process it is necessary to rapidly move the items being processed from one manufacturing step to the succeeding step. This is true also in the production of concrete blocks such as used in the building construction trade.
To date, one bottle neck in the high volume production of concrete blocks has been the rapid transfer of blocks to the curing kiln and the loading of blocks into the curing kiln.
Typically, the transfer of uncured blocks to the curing kiln from the previous manufacturing step must be interrupted while uncured blocks are being loaded nto the curing kiln. This interruption in the flow of uncured blocks to the curing kiln slows down the entire manufacturing process. The primary interruption occurs because a succeeding pallet cannot be moved into a loading position until a previous pallet has been loaded and the pusher means returns to its initial position. This interruption becomes increasingly unacceptable with an increase in the length of the pallets carrying the blocks. With short pallets, carrying two blocks, for example, the period of time required to move a succeeding pallet into the loading position is not significantly different than the time required to push the pallet laterally into the kiln. However, a pallet carrying six blocks in a linear arrangement, for example, requires a substantially greater period of time to travel along its length to a loading position, than it does to travel laterally into the kiln. While it may be desirable to merely increase the speed of travel of the pallets, such a solution is unacceptable in view of the fact that uncured blocks are quite sensitive to sudden shocks caused by rapid acceleration or deceleration.
An object of the invention is to provide an apparatus for transferring uncured concrete blocks to a curing kiln and loading the concrete blocks into the curing kiln without interruption in the transfer or flow of blocks to the kiln from the previous manufacturing operation.
Another object of the present invention is to accomplish the loading of concrete blocks into the curing kiln without damaging the relatively delicate uncured concrete block.
These and other objects of the present invention will become known by reference to the specification and accompanying drawings wherein like numerals refer to like parts throughout and in which: